The recent evidence is that most industries and the economy in general are experiencing important changes as a result of the diffusion of information and communication technologies, making more intense knowledge flows across firms and across the world possible. Firms are undertaking organisational changes that make them look like networks, characterised by outsourcing, decentralisation of decision-making, multiple nodes since the network is constituted
both internally (relationship between the firm's units) and externally (relationships with competitors, suppliers, distributors, etc.). In the meantime, firms are looking for new ways of reporting on their performance, with attempts to evaluate their intangible assets, including the capability to innovate, as well as both individual and organisational knowledge and competencies.
Meanwhile, scholars in economics are developing new theoretical frameworks to better consider knowledge creation and technological change than in the past. R&D, organisation, human capital, knowledge, are all important assets of the firm which are difficult to measure but the increasing reliance of firms on these assets to ensure performance raises the issue of what does economics has to say about intangible assets and, if the theoretical framework is not completely
adequate to consider them, how could they be better taken into account.
The aim of this paper is precisely to address the latter issue: after providing empirical evidence of the rise of intangible assets, we ask what economics has to say about intangibles and make a reflection on how to develop the economics of intangibles.